Ernie Buntin Appreciation Page

Special thanks to Lew "Luigi" Mandel who was nice enough to scan and send me this picture.

Lew writes:

I was looking at old pictures and came across a picture taken about 1958. As you can see, Ernie Buntin is mean and trim as the swimming counselor. I am the little guy in the center. I do not remember the name of the guy on the left. Charlie Perle is in the middle in the back and David Kreisberg is on the right. This would be a good picture of Ernie to include as part of his memorial. Lew Mandel

In memory of Ernie Buntin - who passed away on October 18th, 2003, I am putting together a collection of memories, thoughts, anecdotes, etc. from Camp Dunmore alumni who wish to share their thoughts on this very special person who *was* and who personified camp...

If you would like to send me something to post, please send it to me directly at DigDeep@aei.ca.

RIP Ernie... nunway!

Danny "Newf" Newfield writes:

I have been up to northern Vermont a number of times in the past few years and yet regretfully never took the time to track down Ernie. Sadly, I have lost that opportunity for good.

He always seemed larger than life. Considering how scrawny I was as a kid, he may actually have been larger than life. What amazes me in thinking back to Ernie was how much work he could get done in a pair of hiking boots and a Speedo. I'm certain that he wore other things (a green t-shirt?), but I have this consistent image of a scantily-clad workhorse. Perhaps the most monumental task I recall was when he took it upon himself to rebuild the docks in 1990 (?). From scratch. I am sure there was a discussion between him and Ellie about taking on this task, but from my perspective, it seemed as though Ernie woke up one morning and decided to rebuild the waterfront. This of course implies that he slept.

I went on a lot of hikes with Ernie. I remember Silver Lake, Mt. Moose, Mt. Abe, Mt. Mansfield, Lake George. The day hikes were fun but did not expose us to the real Ernie. He seemed preoccupied at these times. Perhaps he had to mow the back fields or build steps to Bunk 3 and this hike with the wee ones was a mere imposition onto his time. The overnights, however, were where he really shined. I think he enjoyed being away from the daily mishegas of camp life and liked the relative quiet of a small group of adolescents holed away in the woods. He could be funny. "Ernie, what time is it?" "About that time." He was a gourmet cook--grilled cheese, pepper steak, pancakes, s'mores, Ernie tea. And he ruled his camps with an iron fist. Just ask anyone who chose to have a return trip on the rope swing instead of jumping into the water or who got too close to the fire. Ernie took no shit from no one.

Despite this, there was something that drew us in. Maybe it was his predictability--something greatly appreciated by teenage boys. Especially after all the turmoil camp went through in the mid-80s. Maybe it was his strength--enviable, awe-inspiring. Maybe it was the oft-hidden warmth. Whatever it was, Ernie was a rock and no one who came through the little camp on the north side of the lake went untouched.

Put that man in a canoe and he became his own outboard motor.

Nunway.

Danny (Newf) Newfield ('83-'91)

Lew "Luigi" Mandel writes:

My name is Lew "Luigi" Mandel. I spent 16 glorious summers at Camp Dunmore from 1956-1971. In addition, both of my children, Ken and Nina Mandel were Dunmore campers, Ken from 1988-95 and Nina from 1991-95. I am greatly saddened by the news of Ernie's passing. Ernie taught me how to swim in his own inimitable way. He threw me into Deep 1 with a bamboo pole a foot in front of me and as I struggled to reach the pole I ended up making it across the entire span of Deep 1 and never looked back. Those of you who remember me know that I was a waterfront counselor for many years at Dunmore. Part of my Red Cross Water Safety Instructor course when I was a waiter involved saving Ernie who had filled his bathing suit with rocks from the rockpile. Ernie was the head of the waterfront at that time. During my last full summer at Dunmore in 1971, I was stung by a yellow jacket and went into anaphylactic shock for about 8 hours. I remember Ernie sitting at my bedside in the infirmary telling me that he collected bumble bees in a jar until he found out the hard way that they stung. This was the only night in my 16 years that I ever spent in the infirmary.

My relationship with Ernie encompasses when I was a camper, a counselor and as a parent. The only way that I can express how I feel about Ernie is to say that I felt entirely comfortable entrusting my children to him. Knowing that he was at Dunmore made me feel that Ken and Nina were always in safe hands. I knew he would teach them the same lessons of working hard without offering excuses in order to accomplish whatever they set their minds to. Dunmore and Ernie are and will always be inseparable in my memory, will always make me smile and think happy thoughts, and for this I am extremely grateful to have had a relationship with Ernie that spanned almost 40 years.

Lew "Luigi" Mandel Dunmore camper/counselor 1956-1971, Dunmore parent 1988-1995

For those of you who want to rekindle old memories, you can email me at oma13@aol.com, my address is 11 Tulip Lane, Port Washington, New York 11050, and my telephone number is 516-883-6198.

Mark Shprintz writes:

I am sorry to hear about ErnieÕs passing. I shared a lot of summerÕs with Bruce and my sympathy goes out to him and his family. ErnieÕs trips were a wonderful part of camp. I liked canoe trips best, Lake George (3 or 4 times) and a big trip to Lake Saranac where I shared a tent with Ty Conner. I cut my foot skinny dipping (could of been worse) and sliced by finger real good learning to chop wood (not under ernieÕs supervision but some other counselor who was probably the only adult who was ever paddled). Ernie did some fine bandaging and today my finger wiggles just fine. I have many good, happy memories of those trips. I love Nature and beauty and remember that scary exhilarating feeling of being so far from shore. Images of Ernie come to me thirty years later. His buzz cut when long flowing locks were seventies fashion. The sheer size of the guy. The biggest calves and forearms IÕve ever seen. His belly was very impressive too. Especially when he wore his speedo and hiking boots. He was also very graceful. There was a wooden food locker that just barely fit between the struts of the canoe. It took two or more struggling campers to haul that box on to the dock (Òlift it girlsÓ). HeÕd pick up the box, straddle the canoe and slide it into place. I loved watching him chop wood. He started the fire with one match and a big splash from a plastic jug of gasoline. I think he was a science teacher and he knew the name of all the plants and explained the mechanism of the cambium layer and why we shouldnÕt strip the birch bark because it interrupts the flow of nutrients. And speaking of flowing nutrients, best cook and best food. flank steak and home fries. I even like those gallon tins of ravioli. After my second summer I was prepared with a plastic cup so I could really enjoy the hot chocolate with out scalding my lips. Ernie was good man to be around.

Peter Cass writes:

I just found out that Ernie was gone,not having visited the site for some time. I was at Dunmore from '52 to '57, and nothwithstanding time passed, remember him well. He was great with kids. For some reason, one thing I recall is how he was on a sit-up campaign, and had me hold him feet so he could work on it. Even with so many years since then, I was struck by the sad news. Peter Cass

Jeremy Simon writes:

I remember Ernie from my first days at Camp Dunmore and grew to admire him greatly during my 7-8 summers spent in Salisbury, VT. He was a hulk of a man but surprisingly soft-spoken and I do not feel I ever personally saw him get angry, which I am quite pleased about.

I was not a big hiker, but did get out with Ernie at least once a year and the one thing I remember is that I could always trust Ernie to pull me safely across when we were venturing across a rough patch of land/rock---Did we really scale rocks that were pretty high up there or is that my imagination??--- I also remember him having a pretty dry sense of humor, but he could be pretty funny when he wanted to be.

I am certain Ernie will be missed by those who saw him as a fixture of the Dunmore experience as I did. Condolences to his family and enjoy the memories.

Jeremy Simon 77-84

Jess Laufer writes:

I hated hiking!! I only went on one hike while I was at camp and even then I was forced to go. Our counselor was being fired and I guess they wanted to get us out of there as quickly as possible. So hiking I went...I was out of shape, lazy and scared of falling off a cliff. I didn't like getting dirty, and didn't like hot dogs so I complained about the food. Basically, I was a real pain in the butt on that hike. But I remember the point where we had to climb across some rocks and to me, it looked like a cliff that I felt we had a huge chance of falling off of and plunging to our death. My brave athletic bunkmates had no trouble scaling the rocks, and safely on the other side, they cheered for us whimps. My friend Megan and I were too scared to climb the rocks which looked to us like Mount Everest. As Megan and I huddled together, Ernie said, "Come on! We're leaving without you!" and motioned to the group to leave. Megan started to cry and I decided that I was not going to be left on the mountain. I swung across the rocks feeling as though I had accomplished the greatest feat. Seeing that Megan was not going to be climbing the rocks anytime during this century, Ernie swung back over the "cliff" and grabbed her and carried her over the rocks as she screamed and kicked. I remember thinking how strong and brave he was. I'm sure if I saw the same location now it would probably be much less dramatic than I remembered it, but at the time it seemed hugely impossible to climb that mountain, yet everyone of us overprivileged teenagers did it. Now, I love to hike and everytime I do, I think of how much time I wasted at Dunmore avoiding it when I could have spent more time hiking in the beautiful mountains of Vermont. I'll have to take a trip up there and go for a hike sometime. I'm truly sorry to hear about Ernie. He was a good man who was an integral part of camp. He will be missed but not forgotten.

Eric Gott writes:

3 things I remember from Ernie...

1. On one of the overnight hikes I did with him when I was about 11 years old, I cut my finger open while widdling a stick with my pocket knife. I went to him for a band aid and instead, he poured salt on it and said, "If you don't know how to properly use the pocket knife, dont use it at all. If I still remember it today, you know it hurt like hell.

2. Him lathering up with soap in Lake Dunmore when nobody else was allowed to do that.

3. The infamous cheer we used to do at Banquet night...Eeeernie Bunton...Ernie Bunton Ernie Bunton...Eeeeernie Bunton Ernie Bunton Ernie Bunton. Until he would stand up and give us a wave. He is a legend in the minds of Dunmore Alumni.

Eric Gott

Ed Jacobson (Former Camp Owner; Co-Founder of Camp Dunmore for Boys) Writes:

I do want to add a few words about Ernie Buntin. When he was in high school in Jersey City, he was an all-star member of the football team that Milt Singer was coaching at that time. He came to Dunmore the year before it officially became a camp. Milt and I had purchased the adjoining property to Dunmore for Girls, which had been an inn up to that time, and Ernie spent that summer with us working at all sorts of jobs, even in the kitchen. His relationship to Dunmore was basically at the roots and he remained a loyal and beloved part of Dunmore for Boys to the very end. Dunmore and Ernie Buntin are synonymous.

Andrew "KAPS" Kaplan Writes:

Doug My Brother how goes it! Thanks once again for the site. I greatly appreciated you letting me know about the passing of Ernie. The destruction of much of the physical camp to me was a semi crushing blow, and to this day I will never undestand why Ellie did not once turn to us and see if one would come forth to take the reigns. I would have put money on Fink (now Kaps very odd) or Loui Miron. The death of Milt was also very sad to me as he defined so many years of camp for me and so many others. Milt seemed old even when I was a kid of six, but Ernie he was ageless! It will soon be 20 years since I last saw Ernie. I like to think I saw him at his very best! The last night of camp tending the final fire, which I am sure he either started with two sticks or maybe just maybe a single wood match! I do prefer this visual over him in his green banana hammock! Ernie for whatever reason lived in Bunk 10 in the Mid 70's. His neighbors in the sprawl of Bunk ten were the Bosmans, and a plethora of wining homesick 6, 7, and 8 year olds. From my first day in 1974 to my last in 1986 Ernie was a Dunmore staple. As a camper for Sunday night couselor meetings you knew not to act up if Ernie was watching your bunk. Though I never recall ever hearing the man raise his voice. As a counselor I gave up a day off just to go on Lake George with Ernie. The food, the food, the food! The bisquits, and the chance to eat some bacon with them! I am sad to say my memories of the conversations around the various fires of all the camping trips is fading, but the knowledge of the woods and the lake endures. Let us face it many of us in our spoiled youth would define roughing it as single plie toilet paper. Ernie not only tolerated our foolishness and mistakes, but did so with a simple shake of his head. Ernie taught many of us the simple but proven methods of camping, canoeing and woodcraft. To this day when I go camping much of what I do was learned from Ernie. Leave nothing but your foot prints! My fondest memory of Ernie was the smirk and glint in his eyes he got when you were leading the group down a trail instead of him and suddenly the trail would fork. "Hey Ernie which way? Left or Right?". Somehow he always got you to go the wrong way and you would have to turn around and walk back. Yes, I know foolish memory, but it does make me smile as he did it so many times and so many times I had to turn around and back track.

Someone needs to find Ian Schulman and let him know. He was close to Ernie and would be most saddened by his passing.

So Doug my brother those are my thoughts on Mr. Ernie Bunitn I would greatly appreciate you posting them.

With My Warmest Regards To All Who Read This

Andrew "Kaps" Kaplan 75-81, 85 & 86

Nunway!

Jeff Mertz Writes:

Tonight I'm going to light a fire in the middle of the street with one match and cook myself a dinner, which I will first stalk silently and kill with my bare hands.

Tomorrow morning I will wake all my neighbors at 7 a.m. , then take both doors off my truck and proceed to drive about the neighborhood fixing odd and end things, like broken screens and plugged toilets. Next I will proceed to build my own bunk in the backyard before lunch time.

I will begin the afternoon by forcing small children to march up the Hollywood Hills with empty canteens during the hottest part of the day.

I will then put my foot in the ass of the slowest, most obnoxious kid.

I will end my day quietly at 7 pm, wake up again at midnight, and drive to Boston to pick up a load of Venezualans, drive like a wild man home, arriving back in L.A. by 3:30 am.

Matt Power writes:

I think my favorite memory of Ernie (out of a lot of of memories) was at Lake George, the summer of 1991. We were at the campsite, and ernie needed some firewood. We found some nice huge sections of tree, probably 2 feet across, and I watched for an hour as Ernie hacked them all up into perfectly even pieces of kindling with his axe. With one hand. It was like watching a master chef. Chad Primeaux and I had to wait til he was asleep to cook the catfish we had caught, cajun style, because ernie said they would attract raccoons. Which they did.

Another from a few summers before: one of the counselors, a guy named Scott, slipped on the rocks and split his head open. He had a concussion, and was gushing blood out of the back of his head. All the kids were screaming. Ernie, very slowly and deliberately, looked down from the campsite, sat down, put on one sock, put on the other sock, put on one boot, tied it, put on the other boot, tied it. And then slowly walked down to patch up the counselor.

Or watching him paint the totem poles.

He WAS camp.

to Ernie Buntin:
May the elastic on his speedos never wear out. We shall not see his like again.

Doug, you should get everyone to write Ernie memories and put them on the Dunmore page. Jeffrey J's is hilarious.

Hope everyone's well. I'm in New Delhi, India right now, working on some journalism projects. Be back in January. Hope to see you all.

cdc, nunway

matt

Bruce Rutenberg writes:

Hey guys,

Sad news indeed. We all have distinct memories of Ernie Buntin. The one that sticks out most in my head is when I was on the infamous Lake George trip and Scott "Spags" Spagnolli, slipped on the rock at the edge of the lake and cracked his head open. I was standing right next to him when it happend and was pretty freaked out to say the least.( I was a waiter or something like that?) Blood started flowing down the rock where he lay motionless. I hollared (calmly) over to Ernie who was.."sunbathing" over on that big rock/island just accross from the camp site. He casually proceeded to swim over in his famous speedo bathing suit and save Spags' life. He bandaged up his head and look after him until Jim Gleich came over in a friend's speedboat to take him to the hospital. Just another typical afternoon for that mysterious man.

We'll never forget that the meals he cooked on his overnight trips were by far the best meals we enjoyed during the summer.

Just don't get him angry.....

May he rest in peace.

Regards to everyone...hope you are all doing well.

Nunway.

Bruce Rutenberg

Evan "Eesh" Heisler writes:

just thought i would relay a quick ernie memory. in 85 or 86 (can't remember) we were climbing mansfield. as always, ernie spoke droves about the environmental sanctity of the mountain. especially, the path we were walking. stay on the path he said, time and time again. don't step on the grass, the flowers, and so on...being a 14 or 15 year old "child", i wandered off course, only to feel a rock wiz by my head about 1cm from impacting my temple. when i looked around to see which fellow camper i would have to confront for a settling of scores, i saw ernie out of the corner of my eye. he was smiling and pointing at me. "next time i won't miss!" he said. i stayed on path the rest of the way. the amazing thing about this experience was that, even then, i knew how gentle and caring this man really was...i understood clearly the total absence of malice in this act and the true purity of his intentions. he cared about us, he wanted us to respect the environment and conduct ourselves with the highest standards of integrity. i didn't know ernie that well. but, i was always amazed how well he knew all of us. i remember that day.

But we'll all return again, Dunmore boys becoming men.
The seasons change as years go by...

regards,

evan heisler

Julie Feldman writes:

-I (probably along with most other juniors at that time), remember wanting nothing more than to pet ernie's shaved head. i did it whenever i could, and he was always so nice about it, bending down so i could play with it.

-I remember going on my very first hike/overnight with Ernie in Bunk 11 (and many more thereafter). There was a really big log over water in which we had to cross and I was scared to death. he carefully and cautiously got each of us across, no sweat.

-I remember always getting to ride on ernie's shoulders. He was also always willing to give piggy back rides- a campers best friend:)

-Lastly, I remember Ernie at Tuesday night cookouts (it was tuesday right, maybe wednesday?). He always cooked the burgers and hotdogs. And they were good!

He was such a sweet guy and had a special place in his heart for children. That was apparent through his hard work and dedication to camp dunmore. he will definitely be missed!

Larry Singer writes:

Doug,

Thank you for letting me know about Ernie. I have many fond memories of him. First, Milt had the highest regard for him. He relied on him in many ways. It is fair to say that Ernie, along with Tom Connor and Bernie Gale, was at the core of what made the camp a unique experience throughout the 50's, 60's and early 70's (my period of association). Milt took the greatest satisfaction in having introduced Ernie to Vermont too.

When I was a young camper Ernie was the head of the waterfront. He taught me to swim crawl and breast stroke. We swam lap after lap in Deep 2. He made us tread water for what seemed like hours to an 8 year old. He made me comfortable in the water. Ernie also taught me to sail and canoe. After swim instruction I can remember being part of a group of kids that tried to tackle him. We had a great time but never budged him.

Later on, I learned to cook by watching him prepare meals on overnight trips. To this day I use Ernie's Flank Stack marinade - lots of ketchup and mustard.

Ernie always confounded Milt and George. HE had the keys to the kitchen. Before overnights he would clean it out of all the best food - steak by steak. I often heard both Milt and George grumbling about his procurement tactics as the trucks went up the road loaded with canoes and tarps. But that was all part of the fun. If you were on an overnight with Ernie, you never ate better.

I canoed Champlain and Lake George with him. I climbed Mansfield, Camels Hump and the Long Trail with him. The best hike though was when he took a small group of us and we went cross country from Goshen Road (new Blueberry Hill Inn) to Lake Dunmore without a trail or a map.

There are so many stories - he was so good at so many things. He forced us to swim, walk and paddle beyond what we thought were the limits of our young endurances and thru him we began to see that we go farther and further than we thought we could.

My thoughts go out to Ernie and his family at this time. He was another Dunmore giant. In my mind, for as long as I live, I will see Ernie Bunton and Tom Connor matching strides as we made our way, yet again to Silver Lake or Rattlesnake Point.

Larry Singer

Jill Rosenthal Writes:

I remember Ernie Buntin best from my one, maybe two mandatory hikes. I, being the patient girl that I was (am), mustÕve asked what time it is about 16 times. ÒA hair past a freckleÓ was always ErnieÕs response. But what I Ioved most about those hikes was the FOOD!

Thinking about his family.

As always, itÕs great to be in touch.

Last updated OCTOBER 13th, 2005.